Purpose

Thomson financial database reports a monthly consensus measure of analysts’ forecasts in the third week of every month, and firms’ earnings announcement dates are usually different from the last consensus calculation date. Thus, there is a gap between the last consensus calculation date and the earnings announcement date of firms. This study aims to address the question: “Do analysts issue forecasts that are slightly higher than the consensus number to increase the accuracy of their forecasts?”

Design/methodology/approach

This study is based on a sample of 91,172 quarterly earnings forecasts of various firms from 1990 to 2007 made between the last consensus calculation date and quarterly earnings announcement date. Descriptive statistics and statistical tests were used to analyze the data.

Findings

The findings propose that contrary to expectation, analysts’ forecasts between the last consensus calculation date and earnings announcement date are smaller than the consensus number. Also, the forecasts made between the last consensus and earnings announcement date is not as informative as forecasts made at other times as they could merely reflect the analysts’ herding behavior resulting from their career concerns.

Originality/value

This study provides a link between the literature that studies firms’ meet or beat analysts’ earnings phenomenon and analysts’ forecast decision-making context. This study also provides useful implications for the literature on the information content of analysts’ forecasts.

中文翻译：

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分析师在上次共识与盈利公告日期之间的预测

目的

汤姆森财务数据库在每月的第三周报告分析师对预测的每月共识度，并且公司的收益发布日期通常与上次共识度计算日期不同。因此，上次共识计算日期与公司的收益公告日期之间存在差距。这项研究旨在解决以下问题：“分析师是否发布比共识数字稍高的预测以提高其预测的准确性？”

设计/方法/方法

这项研究基于在最后共识计算日期与季度收益发布日期之间对1990年至2007年各个公司的91,172季度收益预测的样本。描述性统计和统计检验用于分析数据。

发现

调查结果表明，与预期相反，分析师在上次共识计算日期和收益公布日期之间的预测小于共识数字。此外，在上次共识与收益公布日期之间所做的预测并不像其他时间那样提供足够的信息，因为它们只能反映出分析师对职业的关注而导致的从众行为。

创意/价值

这项研究为研究企业达到或超过分析师的盈利现象的文献与分析师的预测决策背景之间提供了联系。这项研究还为分析家的预测信息内容的文献提供了有益的启示。